Quake Live – a Blasting Advertisement

The Texas-based computer games company “id Software” has announced a partnership with the advertising network “IGA Worldwide”. This partnership is expected to lead to the development of the next version of the legendary first person shooter – “Quake”, which for the first time will be available online and free of charge.

Quake Live – running on a browser (Credit: id Software)

The announcement was made at the annual Game Developers Conference, which is currently underway at San Francisco. According to the released statement, IGA will manage all advertising, sponsorship and creative branding opportunities within the “Quake Live” website, which will be launched by “id Software” at a yet undisclosed date. According to “id Software”, the website will not only allow users to access the game for free and play against each other, but will also provide “every element of the experience” by hosting tournaments and sponsored events, ‘matchmaking’ between players, and offering features such as friends lists, stats tracking and various tools for interaction between players. All of these services and features are meant to create a vibrant and active online community of “Quake” fans.

“Quake Live”, which is expected to be a high-quality game with advanced graphics support requirements, will not only be integrated with IGA’s proprietary SDK, but also will not require downloading any files to the user’s computer, operating entirely through the web browser. “id Software is among the proverbial godfathers of modern gaming and we are thrilled to be working with them on their first title in our ‘freemium’ category,” said Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA Worldwide. “This partnership is only the latest testament to the increasing acceptance of in-game as an effective, measurable advertising medium and a strategic revenue opportunity for publishers and developers.”

Quake Live fragging with a Nike and a Coke (Credit: id Software)

In this surprising move, “id Software” is hoping to attract new audiences into the Quake fan base, who otherwise would not have considered playing the game, had it only been available for purchase. The company believes a strong “in-game” advertising system on the website will not only cover the game development and maintenance expenses, but will be profitable for the company in the long-run. id Software hopes this will be profitable not only by increasing the dedicated-customer base, but also by attracting other companies and agencies to dynamically-target brands to audiences by advertising on quakelive.com. “IGA understands game developers and game players which makes them the perfect partner for Quake Live. Whether it’s been the ease of implementing their SDK or just their excitement about Quake Live, they have been fantastic to work with,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. “As we work to bring Quake-style deathmatch excitement to the masses, IGA has fully supported our vision.”

The companies expect other game publishers to follow their initiative, offering free online content of their most popular titles. According to a recent research conducted by eMarketer, the video advertising market is expected to grow by 23 percent every year over the next five years. The company, which specializes in online market analysis, said it believes online video advertising holds great promise, mostly due to the customer-specific tracking that helps direct the advertisements to the most ‘precise’ audiences.

Many remain skeptic in regard to id Software’s ability to create a worthy successor to the Quake series, which could actually be played on a web browser without compromising the graphics level, game speed, and other factors which made Quake a household name amongst gamers.

TFOT has covered a number of innovative technologies developed especially for gaming applications. You can read our coverage of Computerized Telekinesis tools that allow players to control on-screen objects with their minds. You can also check our article covering “TDVision’s” virtual reality technologythat allows users to view 3D digital content in High Definition format.

More information about Quake Live can be found on “id Software’s” official website and you can also sign up for the Quake Live Beta Program here.

Sarah is a Computer Science and Business Management student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Currently she is spending most of her time either at the university laboratories or tutoring at MEET - Middle East Education through Technology project, where she works as a programming instructor